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Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands : PS3
Prince of Persia holds a special place in my heart. If you’ve read my review of the other Prince of Persia game on the PS3 (which we’ll have to call Prince of Persia 2008 from now on), you’ll know that I simply love the fluidity of movement that the prince has. Joyfully, I was able to get the collector’s edition of the new Prince of Persia game and once I started playing I could say with confidence that they’ve managed, yet again, to impress with the fluidity of movement. I don’t really want to go on about it, but the main character moves so fluidly… All right, I’ll stop.
The Forgotten Sands does what the last PS3 game didn’t, and continues (or intercedes into) the story from the PS2 Sands of Time trilogy. I still haven’t played all three of those PS2 games, so I don’t know quite how the story fits in, but as soon as I started playing Forgotten Sands I was immediately startled by how much like the original Sands of Time it felt. Graphics aside (because the graphics here are so much more impressive than the equally impressive-for-the-time graphics of the PS2 games), this felt like I was playing Sands of Time again. My memory might be a little fuddled, but I swear that the early level design was identical. I started half-complaining about this when the prince says as much in his internal monologue; obviously, you are meant to feel this! It soon diverts and very quickly becomes its own game.
Running, jumping, rolling - all is as it should be with a fluidity of movement sense of control with which this series excels. Once you stop pressing the wrong buttons (OK, so you never actually stop pressing the wrong buttons from time to time) you jump and swing and dance about all beautifully. Then you get into combat and your brain reverts back to its PS2 days once more; this game fights like Sands of Time did, not like 2008, and this is a good thing - actually, this is a great thing.
There is nothing quite like playing the fighting in this game to really appreciate just how fluidly smoothly the prince can move. He dances from enemy to enemy, jumping on heads and swinging his sword like he’s made of liquid. It is simply beautiful to watch. The only problem with the combat, and this really is the only issue, is that it is too simple. You never feel that you are going to be bashed to bits because you can dance and roll and jump around avoiding everything, and consequently it can get a little stale by the end of the game. For this game they’ve added a set of abilities that you can power up, based on the old fire/earth/wind/water quartet. They’re good abilities though and all of them have their use within the game. Obviously the makers of the game realise that fighting is fun because they’ve added three extra side games where you do lots of fighting and nothing else - well done them!
When the game first came out, I was vaguely aware of a wave of negativity about it. I don’t know why that should be because this is a brilliant game. It’s everything you want out of a Prince of Persia game; beautiful graphics, lovely fluid smooth movement, traps, things to fight, ledges, poles and a storyline which feels exotic with its djinni and desert sand. While the plot is as predictable as being punched in the face, it’s still nice to be pulled along by it and the cut-scenes are well placed and of a good length to give you a break from the running and jumping.
Like Sands of Time before it, there are a few abilities you get to make the game a little more exciting and these are all well worked out too. In fact, if I have a complaint about that it is that the reverse-time-to-save-yourself aspect (first seen in Sands of Time, of course) feels a little dull here. In the PS2 original, it was a well used and exciting addition, here it feels like a poor cover version of a classic song. Ah well, can’t all be perfect, and the water-freezing and other bits that they add for this game are well implemented.
Speaking of implementation, special congratulations must go out to the level designers - each level, while totally linear (something 2008 did away with), is so perfectly designed and the final two levels are something to be believed, both in terms of frustratingly difficult platforming which you know you can do if you try hard enough, and impressive sweeping crazy fast combat which comes straight afterward. Everything looks so beautiful, too. Every piece of wall, every crack and texture… it’s all so immersive and draws you in perfectly.
It’s not a long game. Three evenings of play and I’d completed it with 75% of the trophies obtained. This isn’t a bad thing, however, because there’s good replay value (I’m going to do it on hard now, I think) and there’s only so much jumping around you can do before the *warning: repetitive* sign starts flashing in front of you. The pace of the game is just as it should be and if you want more, the collector’s edition comes with a code to download the HD update of the first Prince of Persia game which is still awesome after 21 years.
To all the naysayers, I say ‘pthurrrrp’. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is a perfectly beautiful piece of computer gaming and fits nicely alongside its predecessors on my gaming shelves. Get it, if only to marvel in the fluidity of movement of the prince. Oops.
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tekkani posted this
